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[Vol. Xxix, No. 2 1991] the Sexual Liberals and the Attack On

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[Vol. Xxix, No. 2 1991] the Sexual Liberals and the Attack On 518 ALBERTA LAW REVIEW [VOL. XXIX, NO. 2 1991] THE SEXUAL LIBERALS AND THE ATTACK ON FEMINISM by Dorchen Leidholdt & Janice G. Raymond, eds, (New York: Pergamon Press, 1990) I. INTRODUCTION Whether it be democracy, aristocracy, oligarchy or monarchy it is still all "cockocracy". Thus the term is coined by Mary Daly in a wild and truly ecstatic flurry of thoughts entitled "Be-Witching: Recalling the Archimagical Powers of Women". 1 The dishevelled tone of Daly's piece, which appears in the final section of the collection, is by no means characteristic of the whole, but the notion of cockocracy, as distinct from patriarchy, is central to the unified purpose of this gathering of feminists. Indeed, the word perhaps ought to have taken on a grander significance in the context of this conference. 2 The ways in which it is a better, more accurate word than patriarchy explain the essential point of all the voices in the anthology. The word patriarchy, when used by feminists, broadly refers to a hierarchical ordering of social, political, economic, familial, and sexual relations where men are on the top and women are on the bottom. Feminists are against it. But there is something about the word patriarchy that is misleading or at least incomplete. It conjures up images of "Father Knows Best", and of the kind of subordination of women that we associate with the fifties and those who cling to the values of the fifties like Marabel Morgan and Anita Bryant The denunciation of patriarchy puts feminists into the ring with right wing ideas of how and why women must be subordinated. It is a direct hit to traditional family values and traditional conceptions of what it means to be a good woman. What it misses is the extent to which the liberal left may be every bit as much of an enemy and a threat to feminists as is the conservative right. The notion of patriarchy perhaps lulls feminists into a false sense of security about the extent to which they can trust the flower child boy of the sixties who seemed to be every bit as much against the rule oriented domination of the patriarch as they were. In one of the more analytically well structured pieces in the collection entitled, "Liberals, Libertarianism and the Liberal Arts", Susanne Kappeler develops this idea. She notes that within the patriarchal family the father is empowered over his wife, his daughters and his sons. The son knows that he may one day ascend to the preeminent position of father. Coming into his own, he may take a conservative route and accept the repressive nature of the ordering of the patriarchal society. Or he may, as a liberal, remain faithful to his identification with the unruly son and seek more freedom to indulge the impulses of male youth. Liberalism, then, can be personified in the role of "the adolescent boy who attempts to free himself from parental control and to reduce that authority in favour of increased personal liberty and self-determination. "3 In Dorchen Leidholdt & Janice G. Raymond, eds, The Sexual liberals and the Attack on Feminism. (New York: Pergamon Press, 1990) [hereinafter referred to as Sex. lib.] at 218. 2. The book is a collection of essays which originated as speeches at a conference on April 6, 1987 at the New York University Law School. 3. Sex. lib. at 177. Constitutional Studies BOOK REVIEWS 519 But, for both the patriarchal father and the liberal youth there is no conception of the good that does not involve male domination of women.4 The conservative patriarch sets up rules against prostitution, pornography, homosexuality, abortion, surrogacy and other innovations of reproductive technology because he views them all as a threat to the structure of the family which is the source of his control over women. The liberal youth seeks emancipation from this set of restrictions because he wants to secure for himself greater choice in the exercise of his autonomy. Allowing licence in these areas makes the sexual liberal a freer consumer of women (or men) as the objects of his desires and projects. In "Confronting Liberal Lies About Prostitution", Evelina Giobbe writes " ...both the conservative right and the liberal left collude to teach and keep women in prostitution: the right by demanding that women be socially and sexually subordinate to one man in marriage, and the left by demanding that women be socially and sexually subordinate to all men in prostitution and pornography. "5 Thus, we begin to come to an understanding of who is the "sexual liberal" that this book is about and against. He or she6 is someone who wants increased freedom in the sexual arena and who is likely to argue for that freedom using the rhetoric of autonomy and self-actualization. He or she is someone who will argue that prostitution, pornography, surrogacy, and even sadomasochism should not be prohibited. If the sexual liberal is a woman then it is likely that the reason she believes that these things should not be prohibited is that women's experience of them may be positive. Women must be given the choice to be prostitutes, pornographic models, consumers of pornography, surrogate mothers, and either dominant or submissive participants in sadomasochistic sexual encounters because these experiences may tum out to be enlightening, liberating and educational for them. 7 To deny women these choices is to treat women as children. It is to impose upon them paternalistic restrictions which have at their root the dangerous assumption that "woman", at some immutable level, equals "victim".8 4. Kathleen A. Lahey, "Women and Civil Liberties" in Sex. Lib. at 199. In setting the theoretical groundwork for a discussion of the anti-feminist positions of both the American Civil Liberties Union and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association Lahey says "men have never been able to imagine •liberty ' without assuming the oppression of women." 5. In Sex. Lib. at 76. 6. The book resonates with resentment towards the women, some of whom were members of the A.C.L.U., who put together the F.A.C.T. brief (Feminist Anti-Censorship Task Force) in an effort to defeat the feminist legislation spearheaded by MacKinnon and Dworkin prohibiting pornography defined from a feminist view point and providing a cause of action for women who had been harmed by pornographers, An Ordinance for the City of Minneapolis, Amending Title 7, Chapter 139 of the Minneapolis Code of Ordinances relating to Civil Rights, section 139.10 et seq., reprinted in Dworkin and MacKinnon, Pornography & Civil Rights: A New Day for Women's Equality (Minneapolis: Organizing Against Pornography, 1988) The substance of the fundamental disagreement between the FACT women and the authors is discussed in text below associated with notes 48-60. 7. Catharine A. MacKinnon, "Liberalism and the Death of Feminism" Sex. Lib. at 8-9. 8. See Janice G. Raymond, "Sexual and Reproductive Liberalism" in Sex. Lib. at 107 where she quotes Lori Andrews a lawyer for the American Fertility Society arguing in favour of surrogacy as follows: "Great care needs to be taken not to portray women as incapable of responsible decisions". Etudes constitutionnelles 520 ALBERTA LAW REVIEW [VOL. XXIX, NO. 2 1991] The authors represented in this collection respond to the sexual liberal' s thinking with a resounding and unified - NO. At many points in the book we see the juxtapositioning of liberal theory of consent, choice, autonomy, privacy and gender neutrality with the brutally violent and stark reality of women's lives. The authors appeal to the horror of 9 the experiences of women who have suffered through sexual abuse as children , through beatings and rapes by pimps and clients in prostitution, 10 through humiliation by husbands and lovers whose support is contingent upon a willingness to enact pornographic fantasies steeped in the ideology of domination, 11 and through violence at the hands of gynaecologists who prey on the desire to experience motherhood using them as the objects 12 for manipulative experimentation • The appeal of the collective voice of the conference to the incalculable pain experienced by women makes the reading of the book an emotionally exhausting experience. It is a work that demands unconditional allegiance. It is a work that is both inspiring to and condemning of those feminists who, notwithstanding their theoretical allegiance to ideas of equality, "will not get their asses out on the street to do something for the women who are being hurt." 13 It is a work that exposes abstract liberal theory as a ruse that hides, legitimates, and perpetuates the exploitation of women. The book is divided into six parts. The first part, headed Feminism and Liberalism, deals with the basic points of conflict between radical feminist 14 and liberal theory. It draws primarily on the issue of pornography to illustrate the ways in which the two positions are at odds. The second part is entitled "Family Structures: The Patriarch and the Pimp". This section deals with family violence, incest, and prostitution. The third section is entitled "The New Reproductive Liberalism" and contains essays on surrogate motherhood, in vitro fertilization, and abortion. The fourth section is on "Sexuality" and it is here that we find the only hint of dissension in the otherwise allied tenor of the collection. Not surprisingly, it is on the issue of whether a "detoxified" 15 female sexuality is possible. The Southern Women's Writing Collective delivers a disarmingly frank essay in which it is argued that no sexual relations are possible in this society, even between radical feminist lesbians, that are not 9. Louise Armstrong, "Making an Issue of Incest" in Sex.
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